애플이 세계적인 자동차메이커가 될 수 밖에 없는 이유 5가지 Five Ways That Apple Is Already Positioned to Be a Car Company

This mysterious dark blue Dodge Caravan with a variety of LiDAR sensors on top is believed by some 

to be Apple's very own self-driving car out for testing. However, it could only be a mapping vehicle used 

by Apple to massively improve its much-maligned Maps app)

(Photo : Claycord>애플의 무인차량으로 추정되는 임대 밴

[관련보도링크 Related Article]

애플, 무인차량 개발하나? Mystery Van Could Be Apple’s Entry In Effort To Develop Driverless Vehicle(VIDEO)

케이콘텐츠 kcontents

 

애플이 전기자동차를 만든다는 소식이 들려온다.  이미 상당히 진척된 프로젝트인 것으로 알려졌다. 10여년 전만 해도 애플이 자동차를 만든다고 했다면 비웃음을 샀을 지도 모르는 일이다.  하지만 이제는 사정이 다르다. 블룸버그통신은 15일(현지시간) 애플이 왜 다른 IT기업들보다 세계적인 자동차메이커로 진화할 수 있는 요건을 갖추고 있는지 분석했다.  첫번째 요건은 현금보유량이다.  자그만치 1800억달러(약 198조5000억원)에 달하는 현금을 보유하고 있다. 전기자동차메이커 테슬라의 엘론 머스트 최고경영자(CEO)는 최근 “애플은 그 많은 돈을 쓸 방법을 찾지 못하고 있다”며 “돈을 물 쓰듯 하지만 여전히 충분히 쓰지 못하고 있다”고 말했다.  두번째 요건은 애플이 이미 소비자들의 다양한 생활방식과 자연스레 연결되고 소통하는 제품을 개발했으며 여기에는 자동차도 포함될 수 있다는 것이다.  딜로 코슬로우스키 가트너 부사장은 “자동차야 말로 소비자들이 어디에 있든지 이들과 소통할 수 있는 퍼즐의 가장 중요한 조각”이라고 말했다. 그는 “캘린더를 보여주고 일정을 관리하는 등의 일을 하는 스마트폰이 중요하기는 하지만 이제는 자동차와 연결되려 하고 있다”고 지적했다. 애플에는 IT와 자동차업계에서 경력을 가진 특이한 이력의 경영진이 자리잡고 있다. 애플은 오래전부터 공급관리망, 배터리기술, 유저인터페이스 등 다양한 분야의 엔지니어들을 고용해왔다. 예를 들어 루카 마에스트리 애플 최고재무책임자(CFO)는 미국 최대 자동차업체인 제너럴모터스(GM)에서 20년간 재무와 운영을 맡아온 인물이다. 애디 큐 인터넷소프트웨어 수석 부사장은 자동차 광으로 유명하며 이탈리아 자동차업체 페라리의 이사로 등록돼 있다.  또 애플의 자동차 프로젝트를 이끌고 있는 것으로 알려진 스트브 재데스키 아이폰제작디자인 부사장은 포드에서 일한 경력이 있다.  지난해 애플에 합류한 산업디자이너 마크 뉴슨은 지난 1999년 포드의 컨셉트카를 디자인한 경력을 가지고 있다. 이 같은 이력의 경영진이 애플이 앞으로 자동차메이커로 도약할 수 있는 세번째 요건으로 꼽혔다. 네번째 요건은 애플의 거대한 유통망이다.  전통적인 자동차메이커들의 약점중 하나로 딜러 네트워크가 꼽히기도 한다. 미국에서는 자동차메이커가 직접 소비자들에게 자동차를 판매하는 것이 금지되기도 한다. 애플의 경우는 이미 전세계에 수백개의 애플스토어를 가지고 있다.  다섯번째 요건으로는 애플이 전세계를 무대로 영업을 하는 만큼 각종 규제와 운송의 제약으로부터 자유로울 뿐 아니라 이를 활용할 줄 안다는 점이 지적됐다.  애플은 미국 캘리포니아에서 디자인을 하지만 제품은 대부분 아시아에서 만들어진다. 애플은 전세계를 대상으로 하는 공급망 관리와 함께 환율리스크에 대응하는 능력을 이미 갖추고 있다는 뜻이다. 팀 바하린 크리에이티브스트레티지 대표는 “애플이 실질적으로 자동차를 판매하기 보다는 자동차메이커들을 위한 오퍼레이팅시스템을 개발하는데 좀 더 중점을 둘 것”으로 내다봤다.  그는 “애플은 iSO와 연계된 새로운 개념의 보안장치를 개발해 자동차메이커들에게 제공하는 등 새로운 기술과 연동하는 컨셉트를 개발하거나 레퍼런스 디자인을 선보일 수 있다”고 말했다.  글로벌이코노믹 채지용 기자

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., center, arrives to speak with Gary Cohn, president and 

chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., right, at the Goldman Sachs Technology And 

Internet Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015.

Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

by Tim Higgins Apple Inc. may already be positioned to evolve into a global automaker in many ways that other Silicon Valley companies aren’t.  The Cupertino, California-based tech company has put a few hundred employees to work on a secretive project to develop an electric automobile, a person familiar with the matter has said. While Apple often tests ideas that don’t get released, the work underscores the company’s long-held desire to play a greater role in the automotive space, which is ripe for more of a merging with users’ digital lives. “It makes a ton of sense,” Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos., said Saturday in an interview. “If you would’ve said 10 years ago, ‘Apple is going to be in the car business,’ I think people would’ve said you’re crazy -- because it would’ve been crazy -- and today it’s a much different company that’s able to tackle these massive addressable markets.” Apple, with a market capitalization that’s more than $700 billion, needs to continue growing sales in iPhones, its largest revenue generator, while also expanding into new markets, such as automobiles, if it’s to reach a $1 trillion valuation, Munster said. He added that he doesn’t think Apple would bring out a car in the next five years. Nonetheless, Apple boasts some advantages versus other Silicon Valley companies with car ambitions. Tesla Motors Inc., which delivers less than 10,000 vehicles a quarter, surprised investors last month when Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said the company wouldn't be profitable until 2020.   Apple’s strengths as a potential automaker include: 1. $178 Billion The automotive industry churns through cash at an astonishing pace. Apple, as it turns out, has a cash hoard of almost $180 billion. As Musk said last week, Apple is “just running out of ways to spend money. They spend money like it’s water over there and they still can’t spend enough of it.” While the old rule of thumb was that it cost about $1 billion to develop a new car, those costs are now being spread over more vehicles as traditional automakers work to use vehicle platforms for more models, said Dave Sullivan, an automotive industry analyst with AutoPacific. That would be one challenge for Apple, as would a lack of experience building cars, though Thilo Koslowski, vice president and automotive practice leader at Gartner, said they could acquire those manufacturing skills. “It’s well understood because it has been around for 100 years,” he said of building cars. “What isn’t that well understood are the pieces that Apple would potentially bring to the table.” 2. The Ultimate Mobile Device Apple has built its fortune on creating products that are compellingly designed and that integrate software in such a fashion that immerses users’ lives deeper into the Apple world, further hooking them for future upgrades. And it already has car-suited technology -- mapping software, for instance -- ready to go. “The car is one of the most important and critical pieces of the puzzle that you need to master if you want to interact with customers wherever they are,” Koslowski said. “It’s pretty important to have a phone that’s connected, and can show you your calendar and do all kinds of other things, but now extending it to this other device that happens to have four wheels.” 3. Car Guys? The car business seems simple to outsiders, tempting some to think they can do better than Detroit, which spent a generation sliding toward bankruptcy reorganizations before re-emerging to new profits. But the modern automotive industry has a mixed record on how outsiders perform. For every Alan Mulally, who jumped from Boeing Co. to oversee Ford Motor Co.’s renaissance, there’s a Bob Nardelli, the former General Electric Co. executive and Home Depot Inc. CEO, who was at the helm of Chrysler during its bankruptcy. Tesla has so far succeeded while Fisker Automotive, another high-profile electric car company, had its assets sold off in bankruptcy. Apple, meanwhile, has a unique mix of executives with tech and auto experience. The company has long hired engineers from the automotive space, often with experience in supply chain management, battery technology and user-interface experience. Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer, spent 20 years at General Motors in areas of finance and operations. Eddy Cue, the influential senior vice president of Internet software, is a car enthusiast and on the board of Ferrari. Steve Zadesky, vice president of iPhone product design, who is leading Apple’s car effort, spent time working at Ford earlier in his career. Marc Newson, a well-regarded industrial designer who joined Apple’s secretive design team last year, did a high-profile concept car for Ford in 1999. 4. Retail Network One of the strengths -- and weaknesses -- of traditional automakers has been their dealer networks. It’s hard to open up store fronts around the world fast enough to get the scale needed to sell cars. In the U.S., there are added complexities such as state franchise laws that often prohibit manufacturers from selling cars directly to customers. That’s something Tesla has sought to upend. Rather than selling through franchised dealers, the Palo Alto, California-based automaker operates its own showrooms -- which were created by a former Apple executive -- and takes orders over the Internet. The approach has drawn the ire of franchise dealers and the automaker has butted heads with dealer groups last year in Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania before reaching compromises. Apple, of course, already has a giant retail network through its hundreds of Apple Stores worldwide, from Brazil to Sweden to Turkey. 5. Apple Does Global The automotive business has a global complexity like few other industries, with regulatory, marketing and logistics issues that can trip up the capital-intense business on any given day. Apple, which designs its products in California but depends upon contractors to assemble them mostly in Asia, is used to managing an on-time supply chain around the world -- something Google Inc. doesn’t do in its day-to-day Internet search business -- and handling the complexities of currency swings throughout global markets. CEO Tim Cook built his reputation at Apple for his ability to navigate those global operations. “That would be a huge plus should they decide to manufacture cars,” Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, said. He said he remains skeptical that Apple wants to get into the actual business of selling cars, rather than just moving deeper into creating operating systems for automakers. “Doing cars is not in Apple’s wheelhouse,” Bajarin said. “It’s more likely they are trying to create a richer, more immersive electronics experience tied to iOS where not only the audio system but the information and possibly new levels of security through sensors and cameras would be part of what they would offer to other carmakers.” Apple could be creating concepts, or reference designs, to integrate technology to demonstrate to automakers, he said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-15/five-ways-that-apple-is-already-positioned-to-be-a-car-company

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